


ARK Live! School Idols Evolved

by VTR



Category: ARK: Survival Evolved, Love Live! School Idol Festival (Video Game), Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Dinosaurs, F/F, Survival, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VTR/pseuds/VTR
Summary: The Aqours tribe has lived peacefully in the Footpaw for generations, but some of its members hunger for adventures beyond the southern beaches. For those free-spirited young women, the grass may not turn out much greener on the other side.





	1. The Footpaw

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this to refresh and get the juices flowing a little better, and also because i love playing ark and have no shortage of devastating tales to tell from my adventures ingame

The sun was bright, but the shores of the Footpaw were refreshingly cool with the sea breeze blowing through. Beneath the surface of the water, the oblong forms of the coelacanths glided about, seemingly unaware of the gulls that circled overhead and waited for an opportunity to dive down and impale the dull-witted fish with their toothy beaks. One creature, at least, was aware of the pesky birds – it was a human, one with deep blue hair who was clothed in a crude tunic of leathery skin and woven plant materials. She leaned on her spear and peered up at the birds with distaste.

They were no ordinary seagulls – they were called ichthyornis, so said the woman’s parents and their parents before them – and they didn’t limit themselves to attacking just fish. Pecks and rakes from their beaks could leave nasty bruises or even break through the skin, which exposed the unlucky human to infection, and worse, had the potential to draw predators to the village by way of the blood scent. When it came to facing the ichthyornis in one on one combat, the bird wasn’t a very long-lived opponent, and could be felled quite easily with a few jabs of a spear; it was a nuisance simply for the fact that it was a swift, hard-striking creature with the gift of flight on its side. To avoid being pecked at and humiliated and having the fish scatter and flee to the open waters, it was vital that the hunter avoid being swooped at in the first place.

The woman was a seasoned fisher and thus had anticipated the presence of gulls, and had planned accordingly. On her left shoulder sat a curious little creature, with a large, leathery head and rounded snout, and with stunning white and purple feathers on its wings. The animal watched the gulls, too, with the sort of giddy anticipation one might expect from a hungry dog about to be set out on the chase. It was an intelligent beast despite appearances, and the girl was well aware of this.

“Just like we always do,” the woman whispered to her feathered companion as it came down to perch on her forearm. After a single beat to ensure that the animal really did understand, she thrust her arm into the air with a cry of “Go!”

The beast flew at the gulls with alarming speed, and with a snarl unexpectedly savage for a creature of such small size. It circled and snapped at the birds like an annoying little imp, effectively drawing their attention away from the fish below, and then, as quickly as it had come at them, it took off, to the opposite side of the shallow inlet. The gulls pursued, screeching shrilly, furious at having been attacked for no reason during their leisurely fishing time and determined to peck some respect into the offending animal.

The little beast then swooped low, down to the beach, and the three gulls followed close behind. By the time the single-minded birds realized their mistake and the danger they’d put themselves in, it was already too late. Two died quickly, spears thrust through their bellies and their heads clubbed soundly. The third and last put up enough of a struggle to get away with a bleeding wing, but it was unlikely that the poor bird would make it very far before succumbing to the pain and landing, and there a hungry predator would almost certainly make quick work of it.

All in all, it was a good haul, with more to come from the river now that the gulls were taken care of. Those equipped with spears stayed by the water to hunt for fish alongside the skilled blue-haired hunter, and the rest of the tribe returned to the hut just a little ways up the bank, where they typically butchered their kills.

“Great plan, as always, Kanan!” said one woman with bright blue eyes to the hunter. “I never get tired of seeing that one in action!”

“Neither do I,” replied Kanan, “but we’ll have to change it up a bit soon or I’m afraid the birds will catch on.”

“I hate the stupid birds!” exclaimed another woman, this one with hair colored like a ripe and tasty fruit. “Everything would be so much easier without them, if you ask me.”

“You know, Chika, things are about as easy as they get here,” Kanan said. “The Footpaw is one of the safest places in the world. Well, according to the stories, anyway. It’s not like I’ve been very far myself…” She jabbed at the water suddenly, and brought her spear back up with a still-writhing fish at the end, earning her a high-five from Chika.

“Nice catch!”

“Haven’t you guys ever wanted to… you know, go exploring?” the blue-eyed woman asked. “Maybe north up the coast, or… Even past the eastern river?” She kept her gaze low, as though searching for fish, and she was supposed to be, but really she was fearful of meeting her tribemates’ eyes while she spoke of such foolery.

Chika sighed deeply, as though she’d heard it all before, and indeed she had. “This again, You?” she said. “You know the rest of the tribe will never hear it. I mean, Aqours has been in the Footpaw for generations! That’s probably for a reason, you know? I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to see other places, but… is it really worth the risk?”

“It might be,” You said. “I mean, how could we know unless we went there? There could be a place with even more fish, or more fruit, or more dinosaurs we could tame for the tribe! I love the Footpaw as much as anyone, but what if we’re missing out on something amazing?”

“You has a point,” Kanan said. “I’ve occasionally thought about going on a little expedition, myself. The farthest I’ve gone is the opposite shore of the eastern river, where I picked up Stinky. She’s useful, right? So there’s no telling how many other useful dinosaurs might live farther inland.”

“I know that, but…” Chika chewed her lip and drew her focus back to the fish. Her friends were right, and she knew it, but the thought of leaving the security of their little village to strike out into the great unknown, where they’d likely be at the mercy of an uncomfortably high number of hungry predators, made her uneasy.

The three women returned to the meat hut with seven fish in all, with one intended entirely for the winged beast, Stinky, without whom the hunt could not have gone nearly as smoothly. One of the gulls was plucked and roasted on a spit, while the other was still splayed on the slab of rock, with a diligent woman working on slicing up the meat of its muscles and organs with a blade fashioned from stone.

“Dia, make sure Stinky gets a cut of the heart and the liver,” Kanan reminded the working woman. “She deserves it.”

“We’d be better off eating it ourselves than feeding it to that smelly thing,” Dia replied, but she set aside a portion of the requested meats, anyway. She might not have been keen on the company of the feathery animal, but Dia could still appreciate her role in the tribe.

From the top of the hut, Stinky shrieked, as though she’d heard and understood the humans’ conversation, and swooped down to the rock slab to inspect her meal. Kanan quickly fed the intended pieces to her pet, and the animal took great delight in the fresh, bloody chunks, to the point that it seemed she might start on the rest of the meat. Kanan whistled and led her quickly away, towards the fire, where the ichthyornis was now sizzling.

“No, I’m serious,” said a dark-haired woman called Yoshiko as Kanan approached. “There’s something in the forest, and I don’t like it. We’re just out here with our meat laying everywhere, as though there’s no such thing as other carnivores! I’m telling you, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“What does it look like, then?” another woman pressed her. Her name was Hanamaru, and while she was typically sweet and resourceful, she had little patience for Yoshiko’s overactive imagination and supposed clairvoyant abilities. “You said you’ve seen it, right? So what’s it look like, zura?”

Yoshiko hesitated. “I-I’m not for sure,” she said. “I only got a glimpse or two through the trees. But I’m telling you it looked dangerous! We’re not safe!”

Kanan seated herself beside her bickering tribemates, and Stinky was quick to nestle beside her. “The dilos should take care of it, whatever it is,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Hell, it’s probably just a hungry wild dilo! There hasn’t exactly been an abundance of easy land prey lately, so…”

“We’re turning _ourselves_ into easy prey,” Yoshiko muttered, but the others chose not to reply.

The meat was good. As a seaside tribe, Aqours’ diet consisted mainly of fish, fruit, and eggs from their captive dodos, and this kept their bodies lean and powerful, as well as their minds ever-sharp. On the occasion that they scored fowl or some other land-based prey, they typically made a feast of the meat, for it would keep them fuller longer, and the precious organs were packed with incredible nutrition beyond the likes of a typical fish. Aside from the health benefits, terrestrial animals also provided more raw materials like skin and bones and feathers which could be used to craft tools and other items useful to the tribe.

“Where’s Mari?” Kanan asked when she realized the loudest and most flamboyant member of the tribe was nowhere to be seen or heard.

“She said she wasn’t feeling well,” said Chika. “Riko and I took her some dinner, but she seemed like she wanted to be left alone.”

“She’s by herself, though?” Kanan began to stand up, suddenly worried for the woman who was not only her friend and a vital member of the tribe (she had incredible stamina and unmatched architectural abilities), but her love partner. It was unusual for Mari to be in low spirits, much less ill, and that left Kanan with an inexplicably dreadful feeling. “I’ll go and check on her. I don’t want her to be over there alone.”

“Oh yeah?” Yoshiko challenged. “What happened to the dilos taking care of it?”

Kanan felt no need to reply, and immediately set out for the hut she shared with Mari and Dia. It was a little further from the other village huts which surrounded the shallow inlet where they fished. The land sloped upward behind the huts on the eastern side of the inlet, and became a lightly forested area in which the tribe often foraged for fruits. There was a rocky downward slope on the other side that lead to the beach, and Kanan climbed down with practiced ease.

Two of the dilos, a male called Spot and a female called Watermelon (after the fabled fruit), patrolled behind the hut, near the crop plots where Dia planted her vegetables. They fanned their frills at Kanan and hissed a greeting, and Kanan met them with affectionate scritches, fearless now of their deadly spitting venom.

“Keeping watch for me?”

The hut was made mostly of thatch and palm, as were all the huts in the village. The weather in the Footpaw was mild, and few, if any, predators made their way down to its beaches, so a hut of straws and planks was shelter enough for the tribe. Had they been anywhere else in the world, such as the redwoods or the mountains to the north or the marshlands to the north and east, they might have been obliterated by fierce, hungry animals within a day. But the Aqours tribe had no knowledge of such things; their tiny lives were restricted to fishing in the inlet, telling stories by the fire, and sleeping sound knowing their throats and their bellies were safe from the crushing fangs and tearing claws of dangerous dinosaurs.

“Chika said you weren’t feeling well,” Kanan said as she came into the hut and sat herself down on the wooden frame of the bed. Mari was lying beneath a crude dilo skin blanket, which did not provide as much insulation as perhaps a fur blanket might, but the only furs that the Aqours tribe knew of were the furs of the otter and the monkey, and both of those animals served greater purposes than becoming a blanket or a shirt.

“Just a little under the weather, Kanan,” Mari replied.

She sat up, letting the skin blanket fall from her shoulders, revealing that she was completely nude underneath. Seeing each other’s bodies was nothing out of the ordinary for the tribe, as they lived on the coast and spent much time swimming and fishing in the inlet and in the shallows of the ocean; they covered their genitals more for protection and cleanliness than modesty. Still, the sight of Mari’s bare skin in the context of their private hut and their private bed stirred Kanan’s nethers.

“Are you pregnant?” she asked, trailing her fingers lightly down Mari’s side and coming to rest her hand on Mari’s hip.

Mari shuddered at Kanan’s feather touch. “I don’t think so,” she said, and leaned heavily into her lover.

Suddenly overcome with the desire to make her so, Kanan pressed Mari down to the layered palm-frond mat that served as their mattress, kissing and nosing desperately at the tender junction of her mate’s jaw and throat. Perhaps it was selfish to think of sex while Mari was ill, but times had been good at the Footpaw – the fish were plentiful, the predators practically nonexistent barring some stray dilos, and Dia’s garden was overgrown with citronal and savoroot. There was hardly a more perfect time to introduce the first of the tribe’s next generation.

“Kanan, Mari!” came a voice from outside, interrupting their near-lovemaking. Kanan recognized the voice as Hanamaru’s. “Kanan! Please help! Ruby’s been hurt!”

Kanan tucked Mari back beneath the dilo skin, urging her to stay put while she went to investigate. She found Hanamaru outside the hut, all breathless and in a tizzy, and she grabbed her tribemate by the shoulders to try and shake some sense into her.

“Just calm down and tell me what happened,” she said.

“An animal came out of nowhere and attacked Ruby!” Hanamaru cried. “It looked so strange, like a spiny dilo, and it struck so fast! Ruby’s hand is torn from it!”

Kanan crossed through the forest again and returned to the inlet with Hanamaru, where Dia was fretting over Ruby’s torn and bleeding hand. Ruby herself was in tears from the pain and from the shock, which was only amplified as Yoshiko squeezed the juice of a citronal into the wound. The acidic juice would act as a primitive antiseptic, and hopefully reduce the chance of an infection while it healed. Ruby would have to limit the use of her hand in the meantime, and as she was one of the tribe’s most skilled weavers, this left an undue burden on You, who would have to pick up the slack.

“Did the animal escape?” Kanan asked Riko, who was standing with a dilo called Dart near the edge of the village and staring up the mountainous slope that led who-knows-where. “Did it go up the mountain?”

“It escaped up the mountain, and I think it came down from there, too,” Riko said. “It was maybe as big as a dilo, and had bright red spines. It made off with the citronal Ruby was eating, so maybe it’s a type of scavenger?”

“If it’s gone up the mountain, we should leave it be,” Kanan said. “No use risking our lives chasing after it. We’ll post the dilos here at the bottom of the slope in case it decides to come back.”

Kanan’s grandfather had once mentioned scaling the slope and exploring the plateau above, which he called the Weathertop, but he was injured there by a large and fearsome animal, so he said, and thus was the last to venture so far from the village. The spirit of adventure that lived in her grandfather lived on also in Kanan, and she secretly wished to lead a party up the slope to see all there was to be seen, but she was responsible to a fault, and the safety of the tribe had to come first.

“Why don’t a few of us head up there and see if we can find it?” You suggested, as though she had read Kanan’s thoughts. She seemed to come out of nowhere, and startled the already-tense Kanan and Riko.

“There’s no need for that,” Kanan said firmly. She was well aware that You’s suggestion was born of a desperate thirst for adventure beyond the confines of the village, and You herself was aware that they shared this thirst. “Let’s head back. We’ll post the dilos as sentries and be done with it. If you really want to go out, why don’t you go gather some berries in the forest before it gets too dark? We’re running low, and they’ll be healthy for Ruby.”

You declined any offers of company from the others and scaled the rocky slope behind Ruby’s hut to reach the forest alone. The plants there were usually crowded with berries, but they’d been picked bare not long ago, and the new growths were still but hard green buds. You ventured deeper into the forest, where the trees grew in denser clumps, but they were tall, thin palms with only the occasional oak, so adequate sunlight still filtered down through the fronds.

In the past, You might have been on her guard for packs of dilos roaming the forest, as their long-ranged spitting venom against the skin was unimaginably painful, and blinding if it made contact with the eyes. You would certainly be in trouble if she ran into more than one of the beasts while on her own, and even a single one could take her out if it caught her by surprise. But it’d been a long time since any wild dilos had actively disturbed the village, and You guessed that they must have traveled farther up the coast in search of better, easier pickings.

In the free-roaming spirit of the wild dilophosaur, You ventured farther inward, filling her berry basket on the way, until she reached the place where the trees thinned out once more and gave way to sheer rocky cliffs, which dropped down to the mouth of the river below. She stood on the edge of the bare cliff, wind whipping at her short grey hair, and gazed northward. She could barely make out the beginnings of the marshlands, and thought she saw the trundling shape of a large animal.

A movement from the water below caught her eye, and quickly she adjusted her gaze to try and catch it again. It was hard to miss – there was a massive shape swimming just below the surface of the water, but it wasn’t the huge and ovular form of the sharks that sometimes strayed close to the shore. No, this was something else entirely, and though she was far above the creature’s notice, You still watched it with muscles tensed and breath abated.

There came a great splash from below, and the beast emerged in its full glory, snapping its frightening elongated jaws shut on an unfortunate coelacanth. You began to tremble at the sight, her adventurous spirit humbled and snuffed near-completely out at the sight of the great monster with the blood trickling down its terrible, toothy snout.

The body’s natural warning system was a compelling and effective one, and the adrenaline that coursed and burned through You’s muscles and set her heart to pounding was overpowering, and she wanted so badly to run. But this was the sort of thing she’d always dreamed of – discovering a fearsome and yet unknown creature beyond the bounds of Aqours village – and so she forced herself to stay and watch. She lay on her stomach, breathing deeply, and peered down the cliff again at the animal.

It was standing on the bank now, its meal already crunched and swallowed, and it appeared to be watching the surface of the water in the same manner as the tribe’s spear-fishers. You found herself holding her breath again as the great black beast stood there, stock-still, waiting to surprise yet another unlucky fish with only the humming of the insects and the crashing of the water against the cliff rocks as its soundtrack.

Suddenly – _snap!_ – the incredible beast struck out at the water, snapping up a fat fish and gulping it down like it was nothing. It was then that You began to understand that this creature lived in a way much like the tribe – the waterways were its home, and the fish were its livelihood. If You went down to get a closer look, it would likely snatch her up in its jaws like a helpless fish, and that would be the end of it, but You couldn’t help but imagine the kind of team the tribe and the beast might make if they worked together.

If the dilos with their deadly venom and razor fangs could be tamed, why not this mighty fishing dinosaur?

You’s discovery and the suggestion that the tribe ought to try and tame the fishing beast was met with wonder by some, and derision by others. Dia in particular was vehemently against even approaching the animal, citing safety concerns, and while she was technically within her rights to say so, You couldn’t resist pointing out that they already lived peacefully with vicious, venomous pack dinosaurs.

“They’re small, and we outnumbered them when we caught them,” Dia replied. “If that animal really is as big as you say, then it could wipe us out with little effort, and I refuse to take the risk.”

You rolled her gaze to Kanan. “What do you think, Kanan?”

Kanan felt all eyes on her. They had no official tribe chief, but Kanan was capable and confident in all facets of island life, and much of the tribe looked to her for guidance in times of uncertainty. She mulled it over, stonefaced and silent, so as not to betray any of her feelings too soon. She knew full well that You was milking her for any excuse to go out on an adventure, and truthfully Kanan would have liked to see the beast herself. It would be a grand asset to the tribe if it could be tamed and trained, making hunting a hundred times easier and perhaps opening up an opportunity for the tribe to expand their range of territory.

“I’d like to see it with my own eyes before I decide what I think,” Kanan said at last.

“That’s a sensible choice,” said Riko. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested myself…”

You’s chest puffed up at having won over two of her tribemates already, but Yoshiko was quick to temper her pride.

“You shouldn’t go back into the forest,” she warned them. “Not tonight… I'm telling you, the predator is still out there. I can feel it, even if no one believes me!” She shuddered with dread at the thought of the creature that lurked silent beyond the treeline.

“You’re probably just sensing that thing that attacked Ruby,” Hanamaru assured her. “The dilos are patrolling tonight, so nothing’s gonna come to the village. Stop worrying, zura.”

“That _wasn’t_ the thing that I saw,” Yoshiko said, and turned away from the others with a huff. “Do what you want. But if something happens… don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Kanan watched Yoshiko retreat with a sigh and a shake of her head. She couldn’t be certain whether or not Yoshiko really did possess supernatural abilities, but the dark-haired woman’s foul mood was convincing enough.

“It’s getting dark, anyway,” Kanan said. “We’ll go in the morning, after we’ve had breakfast. If something really is in the forest, we’ll be able to see it coming if we go while the sun is up.”

Darkness fell over the Footpaw, and while predators were few and incredibly far between on the beaches, the members of Aqours were still human animals with an innate fear of all that prowled by the cover of the night. They retired to their huts in threes when the light faded, and there they quickly fell asleep, or else stayed up listening to the drone of the cicadas and the trickle of the inlet waters (or, in the case of Kanan, Dia, and Mari, the crashing waves, as their hut alone faced the open ocean).

The night wore on, and every member of the tribe eventually did fall asleep. Ruby woke at some point, the wound on her hand aching something fierce even beneath the soothing poultice that Yoshiko had prepared for her. She laid there for a while, listening to the even breathing of Hanamaru and Yoshiko and her pet otter nearby, and willed herself to fade back to sleep, but her wound throbbed dully and insistently, to the point that she considered waking one of her friends for comfort or perhaps a fresh poultice. She could tell it was still dark out, and without going outside to look, there was no telling how long it would be until dawn.

To Ruby’s dismay, her bladder began to feel heavy after a time, and, gathering her courage, she at last decided to get up and creep to the entrance of the hut. She opened the door slightly and peered out into the night. It was still terribly dark, with only the faintest hue of blue tinting the sky. The standing torch near the meat hut was still lit, and the great chunk of an animal called Porkchop was sleeping soundly just a few yards away from Ruby, which provided at least a little security for the poor girl.

It wasn’t proper to relieve bladder or bowels in the waters of the inlet which the tribe ate and drank from, or in the middle of the village, but the shoreline was a fair walk away, one Ruby wasn’t willing to take after getting jumped by a feisty beast in broad daylight; who knew what the dark held, really? The forest behind the hut was an option, but somehow the thought of taking even one step into that place, where Yoshiko had seen that frightening predator animal, struck Ruby with fear.

There wasn’t much left to do but too keep beside the hut and do her business there. No one was awake to see her, anyway, and the spot would be dry by dawn. Quietly she crept around the side of the structure, careful to keep her eyes on the surrounding trees while her body relieved itself of fluids. Just as soon as the spattering of her urine ceased there came a crack from beyond the slope, as though someone had snapped a dry twig beneath their foot.

“Dia?” Ruby tried hopefully, though her voice barely carried as fear clutched her throat.

She could hear footsteps softly approaching, and while the most intelligent course of action might have been to dive into the hut and wake the others, Ruby wasn’t nearly so bold under pressure, and found herself rooted to the spot as the intruder made itself known to her.

The light from the distant torch allowed Ruby to see only the bare minimum, and that was enough in itself. It was big – bigger than a dilo, for sure – and the fangs in its terrible grin glistened ever so slightly by the faint firelight. It was one sound leap away when Ruby’s brain at last registered the dire situation, and with a high-pitched squeal she turned tail and ran for her life.

The animal pursued without a cry, and Ruby’s body pumped itself to the brim with adrenaline. She pounded down the bank of the inlet, kicking up sand and screaming in desperate terror as the creature gained ground. She could only hope that the dilos, or Porkchop, or her sister – hell, someone, _anyone_ – would wake and chase the wretched creature off, but those hopes died nearly as soon as they came. There came a horrible shriek from behind her, and then Ruby found herself stunned and struggling for breath, pinned to the sand by the beast’s weight and with its claws raking down her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a hot comment if you enjoyed please!!!!! your comments make the words flow so much easier


	2. Forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a hot comment for me to wake up to, friends, i love u

Watermelon, Dart, Danger, and Spot were the names of the four dilophosaurs that called Aqours village home. In the beginning they’d taken great delight in terrorizing the tribe, hissing and chattering and flaring their frills at the very edges of the village, and spitting a venomous warning whenever a spear-gripping human ventured too close. Eventually, though, the tribe stopped paying the annoying little dinosaurs’ behaviors any mind, and something even stranger began to happen.

Four fat fish appeared at the edge of the village every evening, one, presumably, for each member of the dilophosaur pack. This happened over a period of months, and the dilos, intelligent little beasts that they were, slowly came to understand that the humans were more valuable than the meat on their bones – they provided food at no cost of effort or energy, and perhaps they could even provide shelter, if the dilos could earn their trust.

Slowly, the dilophosaurs began to creep their way into the village, edging themselves into tribe life and taking great care not to provoke the humans into fetching their killing sticks. It was perhaps just over two months of this (though who can say for certain, as there are no true seasons on the ARK, and the Aqours tribe knew no calendar) when at last neither human nor dinosaur were perturbed in the presence of the other, and the dilos could be considered a part of the tribe in full. To the dilophosaurs, this was a plan of their own design, a plot to gain easy food and protection from the humans in exchange for very little. The humans, however, knew very well how valuable the human-dinosaur alliance could be, and set out from the very beginning to incorporate the dilos into their tribe.

The animals’ bond with their human tribemates was put to the test on this night, when a great screeching beast set upon poor Ruby, the little redheaded human whose combat ability was virtually nil. The dilos knew from its high-pitched roar alone the sort of foe they were dealing with – it was a raptor, the quick and savage king of the island’s jungles, who typically hunted in packs to bring down prey of far greater strength and size. Any sensible dilophosaur would stay well out of a hunting raptor’s way or else get caught up in the mayhem, and indeed they’d encountered many of the beasts before they came to live with the Aqours tribe, but now the dilos were, for all intents and purposes, domesticated, and as such the sensibilities of the wild no longer applied.

Dart was the quickest, and sprang to her feet at the sound of Ruby’s screams. Only the single standing torch lit the way for her to see, but the scent and sounds of raptor were unmistakable, and she shrieked and chattered as a call to arms for the other dilos. In a snap, the four animals took in the situation – that is, the fact that one of _their_ humans was being hunted by what appeared to be a lone raptor – and immediately they set upon the larger predator, fanning their frills out in fantastic aggressive displays and spitting their painful venom.

Visibility was bad, and the raptor was moving at high speed, so what might have been well-aimed shots of venom by daylight instead splattered useless into the sand. The raptor screeched and pounced on poor Ruby, pinning her to the ground and briefly forcing the air from her lungs, cutting out her terrified screams. At this rate, their chances of rescuing Ruby were dismal, and the chance of accidentally hitting her with venom was far too high. Sensing no other choice, the dilos collectively decided to launch a physical assault on the terrible raptor, and began to move swiftly across the sand with Dart at the head of the charge.

“Back! Get back!”

There came a human cry from across the waters of the inlet, and the dilos heeded the command instantly, though reluctantly. Every second that passed was a second that Ruby inched closer to death, and the animals were well aware of this. Still, they were a part of the tribe, and the tribe worked together, so for the moment they put their trust in the hunter You, who stood firm on the opposite bank, the string of her bow pulled taut.

It was a literal shot in the dark, but You’s arrow flew true, and embedded itself in the wretched creature’s hindquarter. Had she known of any greater spirits, You might have thanked them, but there were no gods on the ARK; its inhabitants were blessed only by raw, blind luck, and an ounce of it had infused itself into You’s bow tonight.

The raptor squealed and stumbled, startled by the sudden burning pain in its leg, and immediately turned its attention away from Ruby to take new stock of its surroundings. Four open-frilled dilophosaurs stood behind it, poised to charge at any moment, and humans – far too many of them – were gathering on the opposite bank of the inlet, and it seemed they weren’t going to waste any more time. They rushed into the water towards the raptor, weapons firm in hand, and the raptor, heeding its basest instinct of survival at all costs, decided to run.

“Don’t kill it!” You ordered above the battle cries. “Trap, don’t kill!”

“What are you saying?” Riko demanded. “That thing nearly took out Ruby, and you want us to hold back?”

“Just do as I say!” You snapped, and loosed another arrow at the beast’s retreating form.

The arrow struck at the thick end of the raptor’s tail, close to the body, but far from any vital organs. The raptor couldn’t even spare any breath to cry out in pain; its sole focus was getting away from its pursuers, and it was doing a poor job of it. The stabbing pain of the arrow stuck in its leg worsened with every stride, and, for reasons far beyond the understanding of a wild animal, its head and all its limbs were growing numb and heavy, and its vision and its judgment dark and clouded. It barely felt the stones and the straps of the thrown bola twisting themselves around its legs before it fell to the ground, completely unconscious.

“Well, what now?” Riko asked, one hand on her hip and the other still tightly gripping her upright spear. “I thought you wanted to spare it.”

“It’s not dead,” You said, and knelt down to check the creature’s pulse. “I dipped the arrowheads in the narcotic.”

The recipe for the narcotic concoction was one passed down from the founders of the Aqours tribe, who roamed the ARK many generations ago. It was a vile blend of old, rotting meat and the common black berries which had a natural narcotic effect, which the oldest ARK survivors dubbed “narcoberries.” When mashed together with just a tad of seawater, it created a potent tranquilizing blend which could then be used to knock out dangerous dinosaurs and turn them to the side of the humans. It had been a long time since Aqours had made use of the narcotic, but Yoshiko insisted on preparing a batch of it any time they had waste meat, and her foresight would prove to be immensely valuable if they could make this raptor a part of the tribe.

“That was quick thinking,” said Kanan. “Good job, You. Hopefully it’ll tame easy. I’ll help you drag it into the village – you help us, too, Chika. Everyone else, go and help Dia with Ruby.”

Ruby was still sobbing in the sand, with Dia knelt nearby with a torch to provide light to Yoshiko, who was bent over and inspecting Ruby’s wounds. The poor girl’s back was covered in blood that oozed from a dozen or more open gashes, and Dia felt that she might be sick at the sight. Hanamaru fetched one of the tribe’s carved wooden bowls at Yoshiko’s command, and filled it up with seawater, which Yoshiko used to rinse the worst of the blood away. Ruby squealed at the sting of it, and Yoshiko stroked her hair gently.

“Don’t worry, Ruby, you’re gonna be alright,” she assured her. “I’ll get you taken care of. Hanamaru, go and bring me some citronal and some narcoberries from the meat hut.”

The narcoberries were bitter, but Ruby chewed them as instructed, and after a time fell into a peaceful and pain-free sleep, leaving Yoshiko free to clean and disinfect her wounds and attempt some primitive stitching without causing her friend any more undue suffering.

Nearby the meat hut, Kanan, You, and Chika had the raptor settled on a bed of collected leaves. It breathed slowly and deeply, still unaware of its surroundings, but the sight of the great razor claws on its feet made Kanan uneasy.

“We should bind its arms and legs and file its claws,” Kanan said. “That way, if it wakes up before one of us can put it out again, it won’t be able to attack.”

They bound the raptor’s limbs and jaws with thick hide straps from some unused bolas, and filed its deadly claws down to blunts with a rough-sided rock. Through all this it seemed as though the beast might wake and strike out at them, as it began to breathe irregularly and twitch its muscles, but quick-thinking You administered another dose of the narcotic, this time by mouth, and the raptor slipped into unconsciousness again.

“We should probably put off going to see the fishing dinosaur until we’ve managed to tame this one,” Kanan said. “It’s a raptor, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one around here. If I’m being honest, I almost forgot about them.”

“We’re getting spoiled living here,” You laughed, and stroked the raptor’s feathered head. “I think it’ll be just as valuable as the fishing dinosaur – heck, maybe it can help us tame it!”

Taming dinosaurs using the narcotics was a process that required much care and much patience, but there was significantly less risk involved than trying to earn a dinosaur’s trust through feeding and active interaction, as they’d done with the dilos. This method was simple – they kept the dinosaur drowsy enough not to attack, and desensitized it to the presence of humans.

Dia was not happy with the presence of the raptor or the fact that the tribe had decided to try and tame it, and she made her displeasure known at sunrise, once the tribe had settled down and slept for another hour or two.

“The thing tried to _eat_ Ruby, and now we’re going to make friends with it?” Dia spat, and banged her fist on the rock slab they used to prepare food. “It’s wrong, Kanan. It’s a killer, and we should put it down.”

“Dia, calm down,” Kanan said, and seated herself beside Dia. “I know you’re upset. We all are. But the raptor is a dinosaur, a wild animal. It doesn’t understand that hunting Ruby was the wrong thing to do. Animals only understand survival, and to the raptor Ruby looked like an easy meal. But we’re going to teach it, Dia. We’ll teach it the same way we taught the dilos, and Porkchop, and Parry.”

“I still don’t like it,” Dia muttered, but she ceased her fussing.

“Is the fish mash almost ready?” Chika called from the shallows. She was sitting in the sand with only her feet resting in the inlet’s cool waters. “I’m starving!”

“If you want it that badly then go and get me some more eggs,” Dia replied. “I’m almost done.”

Dia’s “fish mash” was a slightly more complicated recipe compared to the tribe’s usual fare of fire-roasted muscle and organ meats, with the odd side of greens or fruit. A whole, deboned fish was roasted, and, with the flaky flesh still hot from the fire, mashed together with fresh eggs and savoroot, then topped with greens to create a nourishing paste of a meal. Ruby, in her current state, needed plenty of water and nutritious, easy-to-eat foods, and Dia was on top of it.

Chika set out to the other side of the village to gather eggs from the dodo pen which was constructed behind Kanan’s hut. The slow and dim-witted birds were easy to keep, and provided them with eggs daily, which were a useful source of protein when the tribe couldn’t pull a good haul of meat, and a delicious addition to their meals when they could. The birds were already up and pecking at their feed in the pen, so Chika climbed up into their shed to collect the eggs. They had only two females at the moment, and so two eggs at a time were the most they could hope for on any given day.

Once she’d retrieved the eggs and given the dodos a little affection for their efforts, Chika meant to return to the meat hut, but before she could leave, a curious shape out on the ocean caught her eye. There was another island located across the eastern river from the Footpaw, and at this island’s southern tip, Chika could just barely make out the massive black form moving slowly through the water. It plainly was not a dinosaur, at least not one Chika had ever seen or heard of; the shape of it was reminiscent of a dilo’s fanned frills, or a coelacanth’s tailfin sized up a thousand times. She strained her eyes hard to see it more clearly, but to no avail; it was too far away to see anything for certain.

There wasn’t much to be done about it, and she certainly wasn’t going to cross to river to try and figure out what it was, so she let it be, and returned to Dia.

“It’s about time,” Dia said as she cracked the eggs into the crude mixing bowl.

“Sorry,” said Chika. “I just got distracted. It’s not too cold now, is it?”

It wasn’t, and the tribe enjoyed their meal gathered outside of the hut Ruby shared with Hanamaru and Yoshiko. Ruby herself was miserable; after spending the entire morning asleep, waking up to the sting and the ache of the wounds in her back, packed with soothing herbs as they were, was an awful experience. Though most tried not to show it outwardly, the tribe was much disturbed by the morning’s incident and Ruby’s dreadful gashes. Times had been peaceful for much of their lives, after all, and few felt equipped to deal with dinosaur attacks and wounds beyond simple cuts and scrapes.

A movement near the meat hut caught Kanan’s eye, and when she looked, she saw that the raptor was beginning to shift and wake. Thinking quickly, she fetched some narcoberries from their stash and crushed them up into a bowl of the fish mash, then went with You to attempt to feed the creature.

The raptor was an impressive, if rather skinny, forest-green male, and the feathers which decorated his head, arms, and tail were a deep red tipped with white. As soon as the sun provided enough light by which to see clearly, Kanan and You had together extracted the arrows from the poor beast, and cleaned and packed its wounds under Yoshiko’s careful instruction. Now, its eyes were far from clear, but it was conscious, and it watched the humans with little reaction.

“You must be hungry, big guy,” You said as she settled down near the beast’s head. She startled a bit as the raptor attempted a sorry snap, but the hide strap that bound his jaws held true, and he found he could only open them slightly. You fixed a bit of the mash onto a flat piece of wood (Dia would never hear of them using proper utensils to feed a dinosaur) and edged it into the raptor’s barely-open mouth.

The raptor resisted the foreign object at first, and hissed weakly as he tried to thrash his still-heavy head, but You was persistent, and once the raptor at last got a taste of the food, he began to calm and lick eagerly at the wood. He had no means to express his thoughts, but the raptor was indeed hungry, hungrier than he could ever remember. He was wary of these humans – he’d seen some before with killing sticks, and even some with thunder sticks, which were strange rods that exploded with thunder and smoke and caused incredible pain. But his mind was far too clouded to engage in too much consideration beyond the relief of food in his mouth at last, and after eating a full bowl of mash, sleep took him again.

 

They named the raptor Forest, after his coloration and the place from which he’d come. Despite his initial savagery, he warmed quickly to the humans of the Aqours tribe, and after two weeks it was determined that he was now trustworthy enough to be released from his bonds. It was a tense day, but Forest’s razor claws were still blunted, which would reduce the total carnage should he decide to attack. Raptors are incredibly intelligent animals, though, and Forest knew better than to attack the humans a second time – they had chosen to spare him and feed him in exchange for the protection that only a raptor could provide, and he understood the gifts of reciprocity on a primitive level.

While Forest grew stronger and more capable by the day, poor Ruby couldn’t say as much. Her wounds weren’t healing well, even with the application of Yoshiko’s carefully-crafted poultices. The wounds were too deep, too severe, and far beyond Yoshiko’s skill level – after all, none of the women in Aqours had suffered a serious injury before, thanks to the lack of actual danger on the Footpaw. Everyone realized this, and yet no one dared admit it, for the tribe was hopelessly alone on the island. No one could help them but themselves.

“I worry about Ruby,” Chika was saying as she made the trek to the eastern river with Kanan and You. “She _seems_ okay, but she sleeps so much now.”

“I’m afraid her wounds are getting infected,” Kanan said. “Yoshiko’s done everything she knows how to do, but it doesn’t seem like the cuts are healing enough.”

“Sometimes I wonder if there are more humans out there,” You said. “I mean, there have to be, right? Some of our parents didn’t always belong to Aqours. But where did they come from? I wish we knew, so we could ask for help.”

They let the conversation die there, as there wasn’t much left to say that wasn’t horribly depressing and demoralizing. At the moment they needed to focus on their task – locating the fishing dinosaur again. It’d been two weeks since they’d taken Forest into the tribe, and since he seemed to be taming quickly, Kanan and You had both decided that they could turn their attention back to tracking and befriending the fishing dinosaur. At the very least, it was a welcome distraction from the slow decline of Ruby.

As they approached the mouth of the eastern river, which opened up into the southern ocean, they turned to their fourth companion, a hefty dinosaur called Parry.

“What do you think, Parry?” Chika asked. “Can you see anything?”

Parry belonged to a species of dinosaur known to the earliest settlers of the ARK as the parasaurolophus, or parasaur for short. He, like all parasaurs, had incredible perceptive powers, and used the crest atop his head to vocalize a great rumbling warning whenever there was danger. Though Parry was quite tame and had experienced virtually no hardships since coming to live with Aqours, his keen sense for danger still remained, and he utilized it now by standing tall on his hind legs and sweeping his gaze over the landscape.

The women waited, but Parry never gave his warning, and instead returned to his normal, more horizontal position. If Parry thought the coast was clear, then it almost certainly was, so the three women decided to cross the river, which was thankfully gentle-flowing. Chika rode atop Parry to guide him, and Kanan and You swam ahead of them. The river was dangerously deep, but, having grown up on the coast, all members of the tribe were confident swimmers, and they made it to the opposite shore without a hitch.

They were technically gone from the Footpaw now, and ashore the westernmost island of the Southern Islets, where great chunks of stone dotted the coasts and inland was overgrown with trees and ground-hugging vegetation. If they followed the river north from here, they might find that the land grew marshy and the air humid, and a fair few fishing dinosaurs would be about. But being away from the familiarity of their home island saw apprehension brewing in their guts.

“You lead with Parry, Chika,” Kanan instructed. “We’ll keep to either side of you.”

Chika’s mount crept along, flanked by Kanan and You. To their left was the river which they needed to follow, and to their right the land sloped upward into a dense jungle which was home to gods-only-knew how many dangerous creatures. The heart-pounding tension was almost maddening as they ambled along the riverbank, their deeply primal instincts for self-preservation kicked into the highest possible gear.

“This is where you saw it, right?” Kanan asked You.

“I swear it,” You said, and pointed. “I was up on that cliff over there, and-”

There was a sudden whirlwind of water and screaming and terror as the great black fishing beast burst from the river and snapped its mighty jaws shut on Parry’s neck. Chika tumbled to the sand below and scrambled away, shrieking and nearly in tears. Kanan and You gripped their spears, but found themselves backing away, too, as the fishing beast continued its violent assault on Parry. The poor parasaur was trumpeting in fear and in pain as the beast’s long and terrible jaws struck him again and again, and the shallow waters beneath them were clouded red with blood.

You couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horrific scene. Here was a dinosaur she’d grown up with being reduced to bloody scraps right before her eyes, and she was too terrified to even move.

“We’ve gotta go!” Kanan cried, and yanked You away.

“What about Parry?” You demanded.

“We can’t fight that thing – we’ve got to leave him!”

It was with aching hearts that they left Parry to the river monster, but any other course of action would have them crunched up in those same jaws. They launched themselves into the river to return to the Footpaw, fighting their sobs back as they pumped every limb to its limit, struggling against the very physics of swimming in a desperate attempt to make it across before the dinosaur came for them, too.


End file.
